Creating a hardware effects loop using digital i/o

[HippyBass]

Hi,
I'm using Cakewalk 6 and trying to use an M300 as an outboard effects
processor via the digital input/output of my Edirol FA-66.
I have created a bus which routes to the digital output of my
soundcard. The soundcard connects to the M300 via a CO2 converter.
This works OK when I am just playing the tracks through the M300. But
when I switch the Digital In button on the FA-66 to record the tracks
back into Cakewalk I hit a problem.
The sync led on the FA-66 flashes and audio playback stutters really
badly.
I thought this might be something to do with the sync settings in
Cakewalk, but I've tried all of these and had no success. Is this a
problem with the CO2 converter? I don't have any other optical
devices that I can use to check this.

I would rather use the digital i/o for this setup than resorting to
the analog i/o (though the setup does work this way).

Regards

Mike

[Mike Rivers]

On Feb 5, 8:29 am, "HippyBass" > wrote:

> I have created a bus which routes to the digital output of my
> soundcard. The soundcard connects to the M300 via a CO2 converter.
> This works OK when I am just playing the tracks through the M300. But
> when I switch the Digital In button on the FA-66 to record the tracks
> back into Cakewalk I hit a problem.
> The sync led on the FA-66 flashes and audio playback stutters really
> badly.

You can set up a digital system so that its data clock synchronizes
with the incoming digital data stream, but you probably have the
system set up to use its internal clock, which is normal for a
straightforward recording setup. You may be able to find a setting on
the M300 that uses the S/PDIF input (from the digital output of the
sound card) as its clock source. That should probably fix you up.

If your system gets any more complex than this, you'll be needing a
master word clock generator connected to everything.